"His Royal Highness has observed with the greatest satisfaction the skill and gallantry so conspicuously displayed by the officers and men who composed the detachment of troops opposed to General Hampton's army. By the resistance which they successfully made to an enemy so vastly disproportionate, the confidence of the enemy has been lowered, their plans disconcerted, and the safety of that part of the Canadian frontier ensured. It gives His Royal Highness peculiar pleasure to find, that His Majesty's Canadian subjects have at length had the opportunity (which His Royal Highness has been long anxious should be afforded them) of refuting, by their own brilliant exertions in defence of their country, that calumnious charge of disaffection and disloyalty with which the enemy prefaced his first invasion of the Province.
"To Lieut.-Colonel De Salaberry, in particular, and to all the officers and men under his command in general, you will not fail to express His Royal Highness's Most Gracious Approbation of their meritorious and distinguished services. His Royal Highness has commanded me to forward to you by the first safe opportunity, the Colours which you have solicited for the embodied Battalions of the Militia, feeling that they have evinced an ability and disposition to secure them from insult, which gives them the best title to such a mark of distinction.
"By His Excellency's Command,
Edward Baynes,
Adjutant-General, N. A."
No. XXVII.
Extract from Sir George Prevost's Despatch to Earl Bathurst, dated 18th May, 1814, p. 135.
"The principal objects in the attack upon Oswego, being to cripple the resources of the enemy, in fitting out their squadron, and particularly their new ship at Sackett's Harbour, their guns and stores of every description being drawn from the former post, and thus to delay, if not altogether to prevent, the sailing of the fleet, I determined to pursue the same policy on Lake Champlain, and therefore directed Captain Pring to proceed with his squadron, on board of which I had placed a strong detachment of the 1st battalion of the marines, towards Vergennes, for the purpose, if practicable, of destroying the new vessels lately launched there, and of intercepting and capturing the stores and supplies for their armament and equipment. Captain Pring accordingly sailed on the 9th, and with the force mentioned in the margin, having been prevented by contrary winds from reaching his destination until the 14th instant, he found, on arriving off Otter Creek, the enemy so fully prepared to receive him, their vessels so strongly defended by batteries, and a considerable body of troops, that after a cannonading with some effect from his gun-boats, he judged it most advisable to abandon his intended plan of attacking them, and return to Isle aux Noix.
"The appearance of our squadron on the Lake has been productive of great confusion and alarm at Burlington, and other places, along its shores, and the whole of the population appeared to be turned out for their defence."
No. XXVIII.
Extract of a Letter from Major-General Sir James Kempt to Sir George Prevost, respecting the intended Attack upon Sackett's Harbour, dated
"Kingston, 18th Sept. 1814.